


maid of diamonds, reversed

by scudworth



Series: a rhapsody in gold [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Brief depiction of violence, Childhood Memories, Gen, Homebrew Content, Orphanage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scudworth/pseuds/scudworth
Summary: Estranged from the other children, a young tiefling tries to escape through a fantasy.





	maid of diamonds, reversed

_the illustrious maid of diamonds, perched high on her throne, now holds her head below it._

_avarice corrupted her_ _fortuitous_ _success. be wary of your own._  

 

* * *

 

One by one, the orphans under Uma’s watch rose from their itchy cots. The shifting hues of dawn signaled the start of their morning chores, allowing them sparse moments before they were to begin breakfast.

Petite hands flew across their blankets, tightly and neatly folding them. One by one, they stacked their linens against the farthest east wall, and it soon became clear whose work won over the others. A quilt lacking lumps and rid of lice would win the clerics’ favor for the week; the others would only spurn a sigh and a gentle chide.

With sallow complexions and knotted hair, they groggily dressed themselves in their handmade robes, all bearing a patch of Uma’s five-pointed star. The children with longer hair fixed their hair up, however haphazardly they achieved it.

One by one, as the sky settled into a rolling blue, they followed each other into the kitchen. A trio among them shared worried glances, hoping that Cleric Fallor wouldn’t claim their tardiness. Their attention shifted, soon excitedly whispering about what they would making today, and if there would be enough jam this time. The remaining two, like clockwork, walked along silently, perhaps ruminating in their sleepiness.

Despite their shared clothing, each child bore their own story, and how they claimed their identity - however unfortunate and derogatory it was - of “orphan”. Phaye was born to a fickle prostitute, who desperately cast her aside to whoever would take her. A daughter of fallen soldiers, Petra was raised by her dying grandmother until two years ago. She wasn’t reunited with her twin, Brar, until then, who escaped the threatening hand of their uncle. The clerics suspected Vess’s parents to be the pair of brutally murdered war mages; Vess embraced this narrative and waited desperately for magic of his own.

Thissa knew nothing of her parents, her short life divided between the Haze’s alleyways and orphanages. No gossip about their origins, no tragic story that she fled for a loving home. Any independent attempt to seek out her own parents ended in embarrassment, as nobody shared her hooked horns and paled, scarlet skin. Instead, with rounded ears and invisible anomalies, they rebuked her.

She stuck out among whatever group of orphans she belonged to at the time; this quartet was no exception. She even began sprouting above them, bringing her different features more into prominence. There were moments where she concluded human blood stumped physical growth. This humored her, giving her an unfamiliar yet coveted sense of superiority.

As they gathered in the kitchen, with Cleric Fallor thankfully not noting their belation, she used her height to steal any possible approval. Quickly grabbing the pan nestled in the back of the cabinet, she pointedly glanced over at the closest orphan, who evaded her petty parade. The only one who took note of this was the cleric, who shot her a disapproving gaze when she handed it to him.

“I know it can be hard to relate with the others,” he told her, following that morning’s breakfast. “But rubbing something in their face won’t get you any friends. _Especially_ over something they can’t control.”

“I just want to help too,” she pleaded. “And I don’t think they want to be friends with me either. They make fun of me for how I fold my blanket!”

“You’re looking for excuses.”

Thissa swore she heard a stifled giggle around the corner, pouting at the thought the others took joy in her being scolded. Cleric Fallor noticed this, and sighed.

“I can sense that you weren’t treated justly, where you were before. All I can offer is empathy, as anyone shouldn’t have their differences held against them. You have to understand, though, that the rest of the world isn’t like that. You shouldn’t assume so, and do the same on to others.”

“What if they still treat me badly?”

“Then _be_ the better person. They will certainly notice, and feel guilty for holding such an unimportant thing against you. Okay?”

She nodded, eyes cast downward. “Alright.”

By the time she looked back up, his white robes trailed further into the hallway, soon into the quaint room where only he and the other two clerics, Araal and Turper, could enter. The door snapped behind him, sealing its contents once more.

She soon began to pay close attention to the other children’s behavior, particularly at night, where everyone grew restless. As they did for every other activity, the twins insisted on keeping their cots together every night. They had a tendency to talk into what Thissa assumed to be the early hours of the morning; it only annoyed her when Phaye, bubbly and shrill, joined in their conversations, garnering the attention of the clerics. Vess, most nights, tossed wildly in his sleep. Every ten minutes - almost exactly - he’d scratch furiously at an itch. She didn’t blame him for that, as the cots were far from what she imagined a bed to be like.

At least she, and the other children, had something resembling a bed, rather than a warmed spot on a dirty street.

Study time was another opportunity for her to observe the others, yet her fixation dwindled more towards the books the clerics provided them. The other orphanages taught her how to read, but the books there were only simple stories. These clerics gave them an array of books, mostly having to do with the magical world and Uma. Some of those proved to be complex and vague for her, but she imagined them to be poetry of the ancient goddess, who weaved magic into stars she’d one day like to see herself.

Her favorite book, however, was one that she held by her side during this time. With its leather binding loosely draping off the spine, it appeared to have survived years of wear before coming into her grasp. Minutes meant to socialize with the other children were spent reading the next chapter of its story, of an elf who lived in a faraway forest. A hunter by the name of Wyl’wyn Silkthorn, she discovered her heritage to a long-forgotten kingdom, and set out in order to restore it.

By the time Wyl’wyn successfully stole a horse from a human farmer, riding them off into the grove, somebody called out to Thissa.

“You can’t keep hogging that book!

She recognized it as the squeaky voice of Phaye, to which she grumbled and buried herself deeper within.

“You can wait. I’m not even halfway through it yet.”

“I don’t believe that.” Phaye’s blonde, braided hair soon poked over. “It’s taken you forever to read it, and it’s probably the only one around here that’s not boring!”

“That’s why I chose it.” Maybe a false promise would get her to go away. “How about I give it to you when I’m done?”

“I’ll be old and _married_ by the time that happens!”

“So leave me alone, and I’ll finish faster.”

“Ugh!” Her crown exited out of view, leaving Thissa back to her peace.

_Wyl’wyn’s tawny tresses danced through the willows’ leaves, as she felt the fresh breeze of freedom atop her mare—_

“I don’t know why the clerics still keep her here!”

_The wind howled around her, with sunlight bouncing off the stream’s edge —_

“It’s just a book, calm down.”

_When the pair emerged from the willow grove, they saw what lied beyond the Mountains of Norn —_

“I mean it! She never helps out or does anything right!”

— _a stone city, etched in ivy and carvings —_

“They would probably feel bad if she died out there.”

_— the mare whinnied with pride as Wyl’wyn smi—_

“Nobody wants her. I don’t think they even do.”

Wyl’wyn’s bright smile remained as her tale abruptly ended.

Thissa refused to look at the other children as she stormed out of the study room, the book held tightly against her thin chest. She might have heard the worrisome voice of Cleric Turper, only to ignore it and continue to the bedroom. At midday, it was barren, spare for the cots and blankets cast aside. She didn’t quite care if they needed to remain there until after dinner clean-up, as she pulled hers out anyways. It was easy to tell hers apart; the others liked to remind her of how poorly she folded hers, with its bumpy and wrinkly surface.

As long as it gave her warmth, it didn’t matter to her. The clerics surely didn’t hate her this much to take this away from her, right? Or the books, or the food, or the clothes Cleric Araal made all of them. The other orphanages were never this indulgent. There were countless nights in the streets where she feared she wouldn’t see the next morning. Maybe they were right - perhaps she didn’t deserve this at all. Because of her scarlet skin, hooked horns, and animalistic tail, stemming from a bloodline she knew next to nothing about. It went beyond “differences” that Cleric Fallor referred to; no matter what, she was always deemed the miscreant.

Anger festered in her, burning wildly until she fell asleep. She soon found herself atop the mare from the story, staring out into the ancient kingdom she searched arduously for. Inside, she discovered a noble couple, with crimson flesh contrasting their jeweled white gowns, who welcomed their long-lost daughter home.

In the waking hours thereafter, her relations with the other children only worsened.

To spite them - especially Phaye - she kept the book at her side at all times. This ended swiftly with a confrontation, with Phaye pulling it from her grasp without much notice. Cleric Araal intervened by the time Thissa retaliated with poorly-placed kicks and scratches.

“When you two can decide how to share it,” she scolded them, “then you can take it around with you. You should know better than this.”

Thissa tried to topple Phaye’s shrieks by loudly defending her own side, only for both to be dismissed.

“Girls, please. Do it amongst yourselves. Once you’ve reached a compromise, you can have it back.”

Cleric Araal turned to the mysterious room, emerging moments later and locking the door behind her. Thissa felt her heart sink when she realized she was empty-handed; Wyl’wyn’s tales were froze in time, trapped in a crypt with no sight of release. With scarcely sharpened fangs digging into her lip, she turned to Phaye when the cleric was out of sight.

“I told you to wait until I’m done! It wouldn’t have taken me that long and I would’ve given it to you!”

Phaye scoffed. “We both know you wouldn’t have. Besides, you’re _so_ slow at reading. I bet the clerics wouldn’t even teach you because they know how bad you are.”

This was getting nowhere, and she would never get that book back. Tears, burning with frustration, welled up. They lingered when Cleric Turper called them for dinner, stinging as she leaned over the pot of stew they were preparing. _And Fallor said I was looking for excuses,_ she thought, watching the carrot bits boil over. _She started some stupid fight because she didn’t want me to have something!_

Phaye’s side of the story clearly and quickly spread to the other children, as Thissa noticed their not-so subtle glances over to her at dinner. Petra and Brar sat on each side of her, trading their own comments, and Vess, ever brooding, simply stared and scowled. After a while, she kept her eyes on her small bowl of stew. The broth stung her tongue further with each sip - why didn’t anyone else react to how hot it was?

Bedtime came around again, and the observed patterns persisted. The twins clung to one another, Phaye in tow, as Vess struggled to fall asleep. Thissa’s gaze only wandered into the darkness of the room, her attention kept awake by the trio’s gossip. She knew she heard her name thrown about a few times. In hopes of scaring them, she jolted in her cot whenever she heard it, yet they paid no mind. Irritation grew so immense that it brought her to her feet, soon exiting the room, hoping their whispers wouldn’t trail behind her.

Quietly, she wandered down the hallway, thankful that her “differences” granted her the ability to see in the dark. Nothing was markedly different, besides the lack of any clerics patrolling the halls. _This is nice,_ she mused, ambling through the kitchen and enjoying the silence it held. She soon turned the corner to make her way back to the bedroom, before she stopped in her tracks.

The room - that mysterious room - was open.

All of the children were warned not to go in there; it was the clerics’ study, where they claimed to speak with Uma. It was locked during all hours of the day, except for now. Perhaps they trusted the children to sleep through the night, and unlocked the room until they roused. If Thissa was careful, they wouldn’t know they trusted wrong.

She slipped in through the crack of the door, only to be swallowed by a deeper darkness than the hallway. There wasn’t a window here like in the other rooms, and her dark vision went cloudy. After scanning around what appeared like an endless void, she noticed a source of light, however dim it was. Upon approaching it, she couldn’t help but stare at it. The light exuded from a five-pronged white star, resting flatly on a surface. Every other moment, it glowed softly, before surging and settling back into a dimness. It filled Thissa with an unfamiliar peace, one she didn’t immediately question. Is this what Uma was? Nothing more than a captured star sitting upon a table?  

Seconds - or minutes, perhaps - passed as her entrancement faded, and her eyes followed the swelling light across the surface. A gasp escaped her when it illuminated a familiar, leather binding. Her hands flew over to it and brought it swiftly back, hugging it tightly against her chest. No arguing in circles with Phaye now, no having to lie to the clerics in order to get her precious book back.

Thissa waded through the deep darkness once more, before emerging back into the hallway, engrossed in thought. Sure, the clerics may notice, but she could tell them that she and Phaye talked about it already. She wouldn’t _technically_ be lying. Before then, she could spend all night continuing Wyl’wyn’s adventures. Would the farmer ever catch her? How would she get to the lost kingdom? Would she find family there? Friends? A lover? Though that last theory didn’t settle quite right in her mind, as Wyl’wyn seemed the type to forge her path alone--

An opposing force broke her out of her thoughts, as she stumbled backwards.

“What are you doing here?”

Peering through the darkness, she found the source of the whisper: the sunken-eyed, quiet Vess. Her brow furrowed over the fact that he followed her - did he really have that much trouble falling asleep?

“Nothing,” she hissed, attempting to push past him to the bedroom. His fingers soon reached out and tightened around her arm.

“No, it’s not nothing.” His voice was also hushed, but wary. “You went sneaking in their special room. I saw you go in and out.”

She began to quake in his grasp. “F-fine, okay? I was in there. But I was just getting my book, I wasn’t doing anything. Just let me go back to bed.”

His grip tensed. “No. I’m telling them right now.” Anxiety flooded into Thissa.

“Y-you don’t have to, I wasn’t doing anything wrong!”

“Yes!” He hissed back, tone now wavering. “We’re not supposed to go in there, and you stole something!”

“It’s my book right now, I’m reading it! They just put it in a different room!”

“It’s all of ours, you weren’t supposed to have it!”

Their arguing, although hushed, clamored enough attention to alert at least one of the clerics. A new set of footsteps, slogging across the stone floor, echoed through the hallway. Now panicking, she tried to break free of Vess’s hold on her.

“L-let go of me, we can just go back to bed and tell them in the morning!”

He ignored her, soon stretching back to call out to the cleric approaching them. As noise slipped out of his throat, and the glow of a candle spread across the opposing wall, she kicked him in the knees. A call for attention soon turned into a yelp as he fell to the floor. Thissa thought she had a moment to escape back into the bedroom, until he pulled on her tail and made her lose her footing. Wincing upon her own fall, she heard the distant footsteps pick up in pace. Vess climbed over her, unknowingly and wildly reaching too far - the book didn’t fall past her head, it still sat within her grasp, where was he going--

Red seared her vision, her hearing, her thoughts. Red consumed her panic and spat it back towards her in flames. She had no comprehension of what was happening to her, of where she was, of where Vess or the cleric or the other children were. Red hid what happened, and drowned her in nerves and anger. It brought noises that buzzed in her ear - voices and cries and screams.

When red faded, the noises dissipated along with it. No longer was Vess atop her, and no longer did the book sit against her chest. Her arms felt coated in something; it was too light to be dirt. Something throbbed wildly on her head. Her hearing quickly normalized itself, and it revealed to her an array of loud cries. She sat up, soon overwhelmed with the sight in front of her.

All three clerics huddled over an unrecognizable figure, whose moans and wails refused to cease. Each of their hands glowed a soft blue, as they waved it over the figure hurriedly. No longer was the hallway shrouded in the darkness of the night, and she could see the figure clearer. The figure seemed to once have clothes, as what remained of them hung across their now wrinkled and chapped body. Briefly trying to evade this, Thissa looked down at herself.

Resting atop ashes on her dress, her palms throbbed with an unfamiliar sensation. A slight coat of black trailed along them, up to her sleeves which appeared to be burned and torn themselves. Again she looked at the scene in the front, before back at herself.

That — no, it couldn’t have been her.

The buzzing noises returned, drowning out the continuing wails of the figure. She wasn’t sure how longer she sat there, staring at her charred hands, before Cleric Fallor alerted her back to consciousness.

“Thissa,” he said, trying to contain himself. “Come with me, now.”

Without any response, she followed him into the mysterious room, before he snapped the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

One by one, the orphans learned of Vess’s tragedy, and the fate of who burned him alive. They welcomed the boy - self-conscious over his newfound decrepity - back, thankful to Uma and all the gods he did not join the pile of ashes that sat in the hallway.

Brar was the first to hear his screams, rushing only to find a scene which continues to haunt him. Vess’s silhouette engulfed in flames, emerging from a centralized fireball within Thissa’s grasp. She was noiseless, as her eyes appeared to have been licked by the flames themselves. Cleric Turper was the first to find them, nearly dropping her own candle into the fires as she frantically went to heal him. Petra and Phaye entered upon Turper’s cries for Araal and Fallor, horrifically watching the three clerics tend to him as quickly as they could. Out of the corner of her eye, Phaye saw something crimson and sharp lying across from Thissa, her curled hair cascading around a newly formed stub.

They didn’t see Thissa after Cleric Fallor whisked her into the room. They had their own theories, such as the clerics throwing her back into the Haze, or handing her off to the guards. Only _they_ would know what to do with a demon like her. She deserved a punishment for almost killing their friend, if not something worse.

Phaye, one day, overheard a conversation between Araal and Fallor, promptly putting her and the others’ musings to rest.

“Do you really think that was best? She was never social around the children here, why do you think it would change there?

“The girl needed discipline, but throwing her to the mercy of the court would only make it worse. The mages have seen cases and cases like her. She’ll get what she needs.”

“There should’ve been signs, though.”

“Perhaps there were, long before she came into our care. Only Uma revealed to us the most important one.”

 


End file.
